“And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory, per se. And what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connection with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or need to honor with our own.”

“The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.”

“So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.”

“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.”

“To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.”

“I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.”

“That attitude that fighting is probably not fair, but you have to defend yourself anyway and damage the enemy, has been profoundly consequential as far as my political activism goes.”

“A man is not a tree'...If we remain where we start from we will neither grow nor flourish.”

“And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory, per se. And what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connection with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or need to honor with our own.”

“I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black; it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.”

“... mommahelp meturn the face of historyto your face.- Getting Down To Get Over - Dedicated To My Mother”